Facilities, in this case, may be transport or storage containers, transfer facilities or machine tools or processing machines and the like.
The products which are transported or transferred by means of or in facilities of this type are mostly flowable, for example particulate, liquid or pasty commodities. In this case, the commodities are often products having an active substance and/or an adjuvant for the production of a drug or of other chemical products, which may lead to adverse effects in the environment and, in particular, in humans. It is therefore necessary for these commodities to be treated, transported and transferred, if possible sealed off essentially hermetically.
The prior art discloses various closing flaps or closing flap systems, by means of which, on the one hand, the individual facilities can be sealed off in isolation and, on the other hand, after the cooperating facilities have been coupled, the closing flaps of the two facilities can be brought jointly in parallel, about a common axis, into an opening position.
DE 43 42 962 C1 specifies a device for the coupling of two containers, in which a closing flap is present on each of two identical tubular connection pieces for the purpose of transferring a commodity between the two containers. When the containers are each in isolation, the closing flaps are clamped in elastic annular seals, so-called sealing beads, on the end faces of the tubular connection pieces and seal off the containers. In the coupled position, when the two housings butt against one another with the end faces of their tubular connection pieces, the sealing beads are deformed in such a way that the clamping effect of the sealing beads relative to the closing flaps, which lie sealingly on one another in this position, is reduced. The closing flaps can subsequently be jointly rotated in the tubular connection pieces, the pivot axes of the two flaps lying in a common axis.
DE 195 20 409 C1 specifies a device for the coupling of containers to a blowing and suckaway means, in which an elastic sealing bead surrounds the end face of a tubular connection piece, the said sealing bead resting against the circumference of the closing flap, when the latter is in the closing position, in order to seal off relative to the passage orifice. The closing flap can be brought into a position coupled to an identical closing flap of a second facility, in the coupled position the elastic sealing bead resting in one sealing plane against the corresponding elastic sealing bead of the second facility.
Since there is no seal between the closing flaps, a transferred commodity can pass between the closing flaps when the latter are in the opened position. Since, in the coupled position, the elastic bead at least partially projects above the sealing plane and a buffer chamber is obtained between the closing flaps, this commodity can, after transfer, be blown out by a blowing means.
It has also already been proposed to seal off the closing flaps relative to the respective passage orifices in such a way that there is, on the circumference of the closing flaps, a seal which, in the closing position, is pressed by means of internal excess pressure onto the respective sealing face of the passage orifice. In this case, the seal is located in a groove of the closing flaps. A solution of this type is illustrated in FIG. 1 and is briefly described prior to the exemplary embodiment.
The disadvantage of the known solutions is that in the region of the outer circumference of the closing flaps, between the individual seals, there are annular gaps, in which transferred commodity may settle, said commodity entering the environment undesirably after the corresponding facilities or containers have been uncoupled.